


haunted by the ghost of you

by WeeBeastie



Series: after all verse [7]
Category: Black Sails
Genre: Hallucinations, Hurt/Comfort, M/M, References to Illness, i'm so mean, old pirate husbands
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-15
Updated: 2017-05-15
Packaged: 2018-11-01 05:16:09
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,364
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10915080
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/WeeBeastie/pseuds/WeeBeastie
Summary: when the night was full of terrorsand your eyes were filled with tearswhen you had not touched me yetoh, take me back to the night we met





	haunted by the ghost of you

**Author's Note:**

> Usual spiel about my old pirate husbands and how you should probably read the beginning of the series to get the gist before you read this part, etc. This one started as a hurt/comfort thing where Silver gets sick enough to hallucinate and deals with some of the ghosts of his past, but then as usual they took my idea and ran with it and it turned into this. Not that I’m complaining!
> 
> Title and lyrics in the description taken from “The Night We Met” by Lord Huron, which makes me feel all the things, it’s so beautiful and sad.
> 
> Warnings for: sickness (a bad malaria relapse specifically, although there’s nothing really graphic), Silver having to deal with a little of that past he doesn’t want to talk about, and eventual porn because what would a hurt/comfort fic be without some porn at the end once everything is all better?
> 
> Thanks to Elle for her continuing inspiration, all the heart eyes for her! Also thanks to Wikipedia and various medical websites for educating me all about malaria, whether or not a person can get it again if they’ve had it before, and so on.

Silver feels the first twinges of it at the end of a long week spent going back and forth between home and parish market, cooking for himself and Flint, and tending to their small menagerie of animals. He tells himself it's nothing and doesn't dare mention it to Flint, not wanting to worry him with something so trivial.

Two days later, when he can feel a chill in his bones despite the glorious late summer sun on his skin and the wet heat that hangs in the air like a curtain, he reassures himself that he's just getting older and more sensitive. It's nothing, certainly not something to mention to Flint. He'd just worry unnecessarily, like always.

A few days later he wakes up feeling like he's had a long, rough night. Even though he hasn't. His muscles ache and he's exhausted and even more sweaty than usual, and for once doesn't feel like cooking or eating (he cooks anyway). He tells himself that everyone has bad days sometimes, that maybe he had more to drink the previous night than he'd realized. Nothing to worry about, although Flint seems a little concerned. That's just like him to worry about nothing when Silver is involved.

A day after that he wakes up and can't get out of bed. He tries, valiantly, but his muscles just won't cooperate and it feels like perhaps the floor has started pitching and rolling beneath him, although that doesn't really make sense because he's pretty sure he went to bed on land and it doesn't follow that he'd wake up at sea. Flint is most certainly concerned now, and Silver is pretty sure he's gone to fetch the parish doctor, even though it's nothing, he's fine. Typical Flint, overreacting. Just because Silver tried to get out of bed and fell, that's no reason to get a doctor involved.

Then the fever takes hold and pulls him under, and what's real and what's not begin to blur uncomfortably together until he can't separate them anymore.

The first person to come and visit him in his sickbed he barely even knows on sight anymore, it's been so long. She's pale and small, a slip of a girl with long white-blonde hair and round, downturned blue eyes that Silver recognizes because he's seen them staring back at him in the mirror. The tips of her ears stick out from her hair, pink and delicate like seashells. She hardly looks old enough to be anyone’s wife or mother; she's barely out of childhood herself. And yet.

“My boy,” says the girl with a fond, sad smile, resting her cool hand on his forehead. It's soothing, as is the scent she carries with her, of strong bitter tea and countryside wildflowers. She calls him by a name he can't remember - she calls him Edmund or Francis, William or Joseph, someone he was once but is no longer. The name she gave him, the person she made him.

“Mum, I’m sorry,” he tells her, again and again until his throat is raw and his voice gives out. For her life, for his, for what, he's not sure. He only knows he desperately needs to tell her how sorry he is. She just listens, her sad eyes fixed on his, and then sings to him, a lullaby for her baby. When she's finished singing she sits in silence, petting his hair with one graceful hand. So much smaller and more fragile than him, is his ethereal mother.

“My sweet boy, rest now,” she says in her soft high voice with its broad low-born lilt, and presses a kiss to his damp dark curls, unbothered by the sweat and stench of his illness as only a mother could be. Then she's gone. He hears the whisper of her skirts as she vanishes out the door, and he aches to feel her cool hand on his fevered brow again.

It seems to him that he sleeps then, and when he wakes at night there's someone else looming at the side of his bed. Someone he never would've chosen to see again, were it up to him, not at all like his first visitor and yet inexorably linked to her. He recognizes the man’s face because the features are his own, except for the eyes, which are hard and narrow and dark. 

The man speaks to him in a language he can still understand and has all but forgotten how to speak, berating him, threatening, blaming, _it's your fault; fuck you, boy; you, you, you_. Silver tries to defend himself, to fight back, but as ever that only makes things worse. 

The man’s features blur together into a monstrous mask of rage as he leans down over the bed, still shouting, and Silver rolls over and away, hiding his face in a pillow so he doesn't have to see this angry specter anymore. That man is gone, long gone, dead, he tries to console himself. Silver saw him dead, he knows the man is gone. Still, Silver’s heart hammers wildly in his chest like a caged bird beating its wings until the welcome darkness of sleep claims him again.

When Silver comes to he would swear this time he is actually at sea; he can feel the rolling waves beneath him and hear the creaking of the proud ship around him. His mind says he's in his captain’s cabin, and his body is wracked with pain and misery and somewhere deep down, a vast and frightening longing. He can hear Flint’s voice, a voice he'd know anywhere, calling softly and urgently to him. Beckoning him. He sounds scared.

“John, can you hear me?” he's saying, and his worried eyes are so green, so vibrant, that Silver has to close his own and turn his head away.

“I love you,” he whispers, risking opening his eyes just for another glimpse of his captain. Flint’s hair is red, then white, then red again as Silver blinks through tears of pain. They're at sea. In Nassau. On the maroon island. In their bright bedroom in the new world. At sea again. Somewhere he doesn't recognize. Flint is young and old and young again by turns, but worried, always worried. His eyes never change. “I love you,” Silver says again to those eyes as a fit of pain makes his muscles seize. He can hear someone screaming - is it him?

Then Flint is gone and Madi is suddenly there instead, his beautiful wife as youthful as the day he met her, perched delicately on the edge of the bed next to him. It's gone dark again outside and her skin positively glows in the moonlight. She's stunning.

“Madi,” he breathes, and reaches for her hand. She lets him take it but says nothing, silently regarding him with eyes like the night sky. She sits with him almost as long as his mother did, but they don't speak to each other, she just holds his hand and looks at him with a mixture of love and sorrow. He falls asleep again after some hours, her hand clasped tight in his own and her perfume lingering around him. When he wakes, she's gone, but he's not alone.

The last person, he doesn't recognize at all at first. He's tall and broad, even more so than Flint, with short sandy hair and a graying beard. He leans down close to Silver, examining him closely, taking in his features. Taking in the earring, the gold tooth, the long gray-streaked hair. The fever and pain and chills. Silver feels inexplicably like this man can see straight through him. His eyes are soft, sweet and a little sad. The scent of the fields, of dirt and grass and sunshine, clings to him. It becomes clear, slowly, who he is. Who he must be.

“Thomas,” Silver hears himself saying, and the man nods in confirmation. Silver doesn't truly know what his voice sounds like but he can hear him speaking anyway.

“I know this has been hell for you, but you mustn't lose sight of yourself. You can't go now,” he says, tenderly stroking Silver’s hair back from his face, touching his forehead. His hands are rough but warm, familiar somehow. “Your fever’s broken, thank god. You need to wake up now, come back, love,” he says, stern but gentle. He offers him a cup of cold water and Silver drinks gladly, then lies back against the bed.

“I’m so tired,” Silver says, closing his eyes for a long moment before forcing them open again, feeling moisture on his face. He didn't know he was crying.

“Shh, I know. But you have to wake up, my darling,” Thomas says, and his voice is changing, the image of him fading and shifting, until he isn't Thomas at all anymore.

“James,” Silver rasps in disbelief. He can hear birds outside and feel a warm breeze coming in through the open window. Flint looks tired, so tired, and Silver feels a pang of guilt for making him stay up tending to him. “How long have you been watching over me?” he asks, gazing at Flint. Despite how tired he clearly is, he's the most beautiful, welcome sight Silver has ever seen. He's not even sure if he's really come back or not, if this Flint is yet another illusion.

“A long time,” Flint says shakily, and Silver realizes then that the tears on his face aren't his own. That if Flint has been crying over him, it's almost certainly been more than a night or two as he'd thought. 

Awareness of everything dawns on him slowly - he's in their big bed with its soft sheets and multitude of pillows; their giant dog is lying sleeping across his feet. Flint is sitting at his bedside in the early morning sunlight, his white hair hanging in his face, dark purple circles beneath his worried eyes. There's a basin of water on the nightstand and a cool, damp cloth on Silver’s bare chest. He suddenly desperately needs to hold Flint, to prove to himself that he’s really there. He raises his weak arms and beckons Flint close until he can get him in his embrace, breathing in the familiar scent of him and sighing with pleasure. He's finally able to relax some now that he knows what he's perceiving is real again.

“I saw my mother,” he whispers in Flint’s ear. “And Madi, and so many different versions of you,” he says. He swallows hard, feeling a lingering pain in his throat. “And I saw Thomas.”

“I know,” Flint says, pressing his forehead to Silver’s. “I heard you talking to them. How did Thomas appear, to you?” he asks, sitting back and taking one of Silver’s hands in both his own, kissing his tattooed knuckles almost reverently.

“Like he did the one time I actually saw him, in Savannah. I don't know his voice but he spoke to me anyway. He told me I was getting better, that I simply had to wake up and come back,” Silver says, his voice hoarse, remembering. “That was you,” he realizes.

“It was,” Flint confirms. “I was here almost the whole time. The one instance when I had to leave your side you must've had a nightmare because you started shouting and thrashing like you were having a fit. The doctor was in here with you and he said you were speaking in tongues,” Flint says, looking haunted. “I was afraid that was the...that your fever was driving you mad. I didn't leave you again after.”

“I don't remember that,” Silver lies, the image of his father’s furious face still burning in his mind. He closes his eyes against it, giving Flint’s hand a gentle squeeze. “I’m so sorry for scaring you. I've had bouts of something like this before, I should've told you,” he says. “They usually aren't quite this bad. The first time was, but not since,” he tells him, opening his eyes again.

“I’m just so glad you've come back to me,” Flint says sincerely, looking down into Silver’s eyes. He looks immensely relieved, and almost like he can't quite believe Silver has recovered. 

“Your eyes were the same the whole time,” Silver murmurs, gazing at him. “So green it almost hurt to look at them. The rest of you changed and shifted, but not that.”

“Shh, that's enough talking, your voice sounds awful,” Flint says, picking up the cloth from Silver’s chest and dabbing tenderly at his forehead with it. “The doctor told me you had a type of congestive fever. He wasn't surprised, apparently it's rather common in these parts. You were very ill with it,” he says, giving Silver a look. “You’re the younger man here, I'll remind you. You aren't supposed to do things like this. You can't. I need you,” he says, and despite his stern expression he sounds raw and on the edge of tears. A muscle in his jaw jumps and he looks away from Silver, gazing out the window for a moment before looking back at him.

Silver just smiles helplessly, apologetically, and nods his head, all he can do since Flint has forbidden him from talking. He grimaces, feeling deep aches still in his muscles. He hasn't felt so weak and so tired in a long time, and the pain in him is stirring up memories he'd rather let lie. He looks down at the foot of the bed and gestures questioningly to Junior, wondering why Flint has allowed him on the bed when he's usually so against that.

“He wouldn't leave you. I couldn't make him move for love or money, not even for chicken. When I tried he just ignored me and stood his ground. When the doctor tried, your gentle lad turned into a snarling, snapping beast,” Flint says, looking fondly over at Junior. “He knows he owes you his life, and apparently he's going to protect you come what may.”

“Good boy,” Silver whispers. He feels exhausted suddenly, even though he's been in bed for probably days, maybe a week. He pulls Flint in close to him again and closes his eyes, falling into an easy, dreamless sleep.

When he wakes the next morning, all he wants is to get back to his life as he knows it. Flint doesn't even want to let him out of bed at first, but he manages to convince him that he's spent more than enough time in bed lately. Flint helps him stand up and hovers close, like he's expecting Silver to faint into his arms at any moment. It's aggravating and sweet.

Silver slowly and carefully makes his way downstairs, Flint at his side with a hand on his arm just in case. Silver tries to banish him from the kitchen so he can make their tea in peace, but Flint insists on being right there with him.

“You’re just going to get in my way,” Silver says irritably, leaning against the kitchen table for a moment because he suddenly feels lightheaded. He does his best to hide it, not wanting Flint to see him still feeling sick. He knows he worried Flint half to death by getting so ill; he doesn't want to worry him any further.

“I’ll stay over here, I promise. I just need to keep an eye on you for my own sake,” Flint says from the doorway of the kitchen. He still looks a wreck himself, the days and nights tending to Silver obviously having taken their toll.

“Fine,” Silver mutters with a sigh, and pushes away from the table to get to work on their tea. He still feels sluggish and out of sorts, but he's determined to get back to his normal as quickly as possible.

“When you were ill,” Flint begins, his gaze fixed on Silver, pinning him in place, “did you see anyone else? Anyone you may not have seen fit to mention to me?”

“Why?” Silver asks carefully, meeting Flint’s gaze as steadily as he can. He doesn't want to talk about this. He'll never want to talk about this. He can feel cold, caustic dread spreading through him just at the thought.

“I heard you when you were having your nightmare. I was here, downstairs, and the doctor was upstairs with you. He said you were speaking in tongues but I could tell you were speaking a language he just didn't recognize,” Flint says, slowly and cautiously approaching Silver, like he's wary of moving too fast around him. “I recognized it. I could pick out a word here and there.”

“I told you I don't remember,” Silver says, rolling his shoulders to try and rid himself of some of his tension. He still aches, even more than usual, and this conversation isn't helping.

Flint just looks at him for a long moment, his expression soft and sweet, understanding and sad all at once. He looks like he wants to ask him more, press him for details. Like he _knows_ Silver is lying about not remembering, and wants the truth. But because he loves him, he just ambles up to him and holds his arms out. “Alright, John.”

Silver swallows hard and moves into Flint’s embrace, putting his arms around his waist and resting his head on his shoulder. “Alright, James,” he murmurs, feeling the tension in his tired old body ease.

 

\---

 

Several days later, in the evening when the frogs have come out to sing and the air smells sweet like magnolia blossoms, Silver finds himself trying to convince Flint that he's well and truly recovered - to no avail.

“James, listen to me. My love. My dearest. Arguably one of my most favorite people in the entirety of the world, despite your current attitude. Don't make me beg you, we're both too old and you're too dignified for that,” Silver is saying as he and Flint sit up next to each other in bed. Flint is wearing only his breeches and is trying to read a book, squinting at it in the low light because he's too vain to admit he might finally be old enough to need eyeglasses for reading. Silver is naked, as he prefers to be for sleep, and has been attempting to seduce Flint with lackluster results.

“I told you no, and I meant it. You just spent a week sick in bed. You haven't recovered yet, and I won't have you falling ill all over again just because you convinced me to let you have at me,” Flint says, holding the book even further from his face and frowning at it.

Silver sighs, rubbing both hands over his face. He really is feeling _much_ better, aside from a few random aches and pains, but Flint just isn't budging on the issue. “Think of it this way, then. I just spent a week miserable and in pain. I haven't felt any good feelings that whole time, really, just aches and chills and fever. I desperately need a good feeling or two after all that,” he says.

“I don't remember you being this needy and incorrigible after a prolonged convalescence before,” Flint says, but he's closing the book and putting it carefully on top of the precarious stack of books by his side of the bed. Now he's looking at Silver instead. Progress.

“That’s because the last time you saw me endure a ‘prolonged convalescence’ - good lord your vocabulary is positively titillating - you and I weren't fucking yet,” Silver says pointedly, folding his arms over his chest and aiming his best flirtatious gaze at Flint. “Voulez-vous coucher avec moi?” he purrs, and if _that_ doesn't work he'll be all out of ideas.

Flint blinks at him, agape, then bursts out laughing. “Where the fuck did you learn to say something like that?” he demands, still chuckling. “And why is that the only thing I've yet to hear you say flawlessly in French?”

“Not important, and because I was motivated,” Silver says, flashing Flint his most winning smile. “Very motivated,” he says, shifting closer to him and putting one large, warm hand on Flint’s freckled thigh, silently asking his permission to continue.

“Have at me,” Flint says in a resigned but good-natured tone, spreading his arms out at his sides in supplication.

Silver is on him at once, moving gracefully over to straddle Flint’s lap and attack his neck with his teeth. His balance is somewhat questionable owing to his missing leg, but he's done this before and he's confident in his ability to compensate. “Oh, yes, I'll have at you,” Silver purrs against his skin, unlacing Flint’s breeches and getting one hand inside. He starts stroking him, feeling a warmth spreading through him at how flushed and aroused Flint already looks. “Mm, and I’m going to show you just how fully recovered I am.”

“How will you do that?” Flint asks, his eyelashes fluttering as Silver strokes his cock. “Talk to me, I want to hear it,” he rumbles.

Silver feels a thrill go through him, briefly letting go so he can pull Flint’s breeches down out of the way and grab the vial of oil from his nightstand. “First I'm going to get myself open for you,” he says breathlessly as he pours oil on his fingers and starts to do just that. “Ahh. Then...then I'm going to ride your cock until you can't take anymore and you scream my name,” he pants, working his fingers inside himself. The angle is a little uncomfortable, so he speeds through the process. The last thing he needs in this moment is a cramp in an awkward place.

“You’re filthy,” Flint growls, his keen eyes fixed on Silver, entranced. Silver was already hard but can feel himself getting even harder, starting to ache, as Flint watches him.

“You love it,” Silver says with a crooked grin, pulling his fingers out of himself. He grasps Flint’s cock in one hand and steadies himself with his other hand on Flint’s shoulder, then sinks down on to him, impaling himself without preamble. “Fuck,” he groans. It's only been perhaps two weeks since last he had Flint inside him, but even that was too long. He feels desperate, like he almost can't fuck Flint hard enough or fast enough to satisfy himself.

“That’s it,” Flint pants. His head thumps back against the headboard of their bed and he takes Silver’s hips in both hands, fingers digging in as Silver rides him. “Just like that.”

Silver pistons his hips, bracing both hands on Flint’s shoulders so he can thrust down harder, whimpering as Flint’s cock rubs repeatedly over that spot deep inside him. He can still feel a lingering ache in the muscles of his arms and shoulders but he resolutely ignores it; his only thought is how desperately he needs to be thoroughly fucked. “James, _god_ , more,” he says in his ear, feeling his orgasm starting to build at the base of his spine. He keeps his hands off himself despite how achingly hard he is, not wanting to come yet.

“So good, fuck,” Flint moans, his grip tightening on Silver’s hips. He's started thrusting up into him, getting deeper every time Silver sinks down. It's enough to almost overwhelm Silver, to make him feel like he's slowly coming apart at the seams.

“James, please,” he says through gritted teeth, his fingers pressing into Flint’s shoulders with such force that he's sure his fingernails are leaving marks. He can feel the tension hot and heavy in the core of himself, almost at his breaking point. “Please,” he gasps, and then he's coming, vision whiting out for a long moment.

Distantly he hears Flint call his name and feels him finish inside him, and he feels as he always does when he makes Flint come that hard - smug, and delighted. It's a heady mix of feelings for someone like him.

He slowly returns to himself and realizes he's been tenderly manhandled, and is now lying on his back with Flint next to him, unhurriedly cleaning him off with lazy swipes of a damp cloth. “Mmm,” Silver says, intelligently.

“Exactly so,” Flint agrees, and their eyes meet for a long, charged moment. “I am not convinced you're fully recovered, however,” Flint finally says, letting the cloth drop on to Silver’s lower stomach with a wet plop.

“Ah? Why not?” Silver asks, raking his hair back from his face and wondering idly when he last washed it. Perhaps he can get Flint to do it for him. He pushes the cloth off his stomach and to the floor, uncaring where it lands.

“You swooned in my arms when you came,” Flint says, stretching out on his side and propping himself up on one arm. It takes nearly all of Silver’s willpower not to start pawing at him again, he looks so utterly enticing.

“I did no such thing,” he says, wincing a little as he works his fingers into his curls, trying to tease out some of the knots. “Or if I did, it was not a sign of lingering malaise but instead a testament to your powerful lovemaking,” he says, biting his lower lip to keep from laughing.

Flint snorts and shakes his head at him, reaching out to pull on the ring in Silver’s left nipple, a short, sharp tug like he thinks he's punishing him (he's-- really, _really_ not; it's the opposite). “Insubordinate, and churlish,” he growls playfully, baring his teeth at Silver in a mock snarl.

“Oh, yes. More big words like that, please, hearing you speak so will get me going again,” Silver says, pushing Flint over on to his back so he can rest his head on Flint’s chest and fall asleep there.

“Contumacious and unwieldy,” Flint says, tucking Silver’s hair behind his ear, then tracing the shell of it gently with one finger as he speaks. “Recalcitrant. Trenchant. Rebellious. Vulgar,” he says, and Silver can tell by his voice that he's drifting off.

“That last one is my favorite,” Silver murmurs, and is met with only deep, steady breathing and the sound of Flint’s heart beating, strong and sure, under his ear.


End file.
